Strategic Planning & Timelines

This brief describes the outreach and enrollment strategies that enrollment assisters can use to help people involved in the criminal justice system get health coverage. By focusing on this population, assisters will not only help these individuals enroll in health coverage and receive needed care, they will reach and enroll more uninsured consumers. Enrollment assisters in many states are working to help the justice-involved population enroll in health coverage. This brief provides an overview of why it is important to focus on this population and offers assisters tangible steps to begin this work.

According to the most recent Commonwealth Fund ACA Tracking Survey, March–May 2015, an estimated 25 million adults remain uninsured. To achieve the ACA’s goal of near-universal coverage, policymakers must understand why some people are enrolling in the law’s marketplace plans or in Medicaid coverage and why others are not. This analysis of the survey finds that affordability—whether real or perceived—is playing a significant role in adults’ choice of marketplace plans and the decision whether to enroll at all. People who have gained coverage report significantly more positive experiences shopping for health plans than do those who did not enroll. Getting personal assistance appears to make a critical difference in whether people gain health insurance.

Through reforms to cost containment and expanded access to health insurance plans, the ACA has begun to shape the delivery and cost of healthcare services to Americans. Many of these reforms are still taking hold, and it is too soon to completely know how they are affecting the healthcare system. But looking beyond these considerations, it appears that many enduring economic challenges persist in the markets that provide health care and health insurance to consumers. This paper offers six economic facts that highlight continuing challenges and complexities in health care and health insurance markets on which the policy debate should focus.

Provider directory inaccuracies have caused problems for consumers and other stakeholders for many years. This issue brief explains the steps policymakers and health plans can take to improve directories and provides examples of legislation and regulation to help eliminate provider directory inaccuracies. Policymakers at the state and federal levels should make this issue a priority both for private insurance and for public programs like Medicaid, as accurate provider directories are critical to ensuring that coverage works for consumers.
 

Attempts to tie health and housing policy are gaining momentum, amid evidence that housing, a social determinant of health, is an important factor in the health status of various populations. More than 610,000 people experience homelessness in the U.S., and over 250,000 individuals within that population have a severe mental illness or a chronic substance use disorder, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This new toolkit provides a detailed look into federal, state and local initiatives, as well as cost implications for health and housing programs.
 

While millions of Americans have newly gained health insurance coverage under the ACA, there is evidence that coverage alone does not necessarily translate into access to health care. This memo provides background information on health insurance literacy, summarizes the research around current consumer knowledge, and offers recommendations on how marketplaces can increase health insurance literacy. Additionally, the State Health Reform Assistance Network has compiled a library of health insurance literacy materials developed by four marketplaces. These resources are intended to serve as examples of what marketplaces can provide to consumers and to groups working on improving health insurance literacy and boosting enrollment.
 

These tables contain state and county health insurance coverage estimates for 2014. These estimates come from the 2014 American Community Survey (ACS) via the U.S. Census Bureau’s American FactFinder (AFF) tool and were released on September 17, 2015. A map is also available with data on state and county uninsurance rates by characteristics (for example, age, race/ethnicity, and poverty level) for 2014 and comparison year 2013.

This annual survey of employers provides a detailed look at trends in employer-sponsored health coverage including premiums, employee contributions, cost-sharing provisions, and employer opinions. The 2015 survey included almost 2,000 interviews with non-federal public and private firms. The 2015 survey also includes information on the use of incentives for employer wellness programs, plan cost-sharing as well as firm offer rates.

Two key federal data sources – the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) – that will give a first look at health insurance coverage under full roll-out of the ACA are set to be released. These large-scale annual surveys will provide a picture of the immediate impacts of the ACA on coverage across the country and within the states while providing historical trend information for context. This webinar on September 22 will examine the new 2014 ACS and CPS coverage estimates with technical insight from SHADAC researchers and experts from the U.S. Census Bureau.

With the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the government in King v. Burwell, opinion polls suggest that some Americans are taking a fresh look at the ACA, and reassessing its merits. A key question for them – and one that is rarely discussed – is how the ACA will improve the health of those who gain insurance coverage. This blogpost reviews the evidence to determine the health benefits of health insurance.